How can we improve intellectually? When we have our sons dancing like monkeys in front of the worlds media before every all black game, We lead the OECD in child killing,We rob and murder our tourists, Our rivers are polluted ,Our streets are becoming unsafe because of hoons and litter, we dont protect our elderly.

It is an awful situation mudlark. Television and computers have put us within instant reach of the rest of the world and we are right up there with them. Crime movies glamorise the underworld while the underclass leads the social misfits into the latest in dance steps along with the baggy clothes and bandanas, drugs and booze. Too much too soon? Who can we blame? There is always someone we can blame as long as it is not "Me"

...I relate to the despair coming through in your comments..We do not murder or rob or roam the streets at night-there is a growing underworld of activities which sicken us.Some attempt is made to force these creatures to conform to society's rules ,but....? I feel the operative word is Force.They laugh at the feeble attempts to do so.The low-lifes choose to be this way-Heavens-our family like so many others were very poor after the war,but we did not choose to live like savages.
I have been reading some thoughts from historian and philosopher Will Durant
he pens some thoughtful pieces.
*....Civilisation is a precarious thing,whose delicate complex of order and liberty,of culture and peace,may at any time be overthrown by barbarians invading from without,or multiplying from within.*
Emelle.

Hope I misread this mudlark, you are not refering to our sons dancing like monkeys before every All Black game (quote) when they are doing the Haka are you???
If you are refering to the Haka??? they shouldnt even be in the same posting,.
The rythmn, expression meaning and happiness and passion the Haka gives at the beginning of our games goes in NO Way toward the levels of crime and violence etc!!!
Child killing and all the other problems have nothing to do with the All Blacks games whatsoever.
As for intellect ,well we all have times when we get subjects mixed up in one post ,and I hope this was one of them. If I have taken it the wrong way PLEASE let me know.
Cheers Kai

Usually I tend to scoff a bit at the PC brigade, but I cant help feeling it is being a little culturally insensitive likening the All Blacks performing the Haka to dancing monkeys.

Yes I do too Silverfern, if thats what they meant?? I hope I was wrong ,as I will apoligise, cos I find that easy to do when I make mistakes , but the posts are interesting and wouldnt like to think as Kiwi we are putdowners, but upbuilders and a little kindness goes a long way doesnt it?
Having said that ,have to go off soon n watch the Super 14 games. Cheers Kai

I never connected the All Blacks dancing like monkeys, in mudlarks post. It does come across as derogatory, I have to agree. Philosophically I was thinking that so many Grownups believe in the theory of evolution as against the creation theory. Evolution tells us that we evolved from Chimpanzees so maybe it is case of interpretation rather than insult.

I hope so

Too true Joybel I may have misinterpreted what was written!!!

It may have been said tongue in cheek, and as we all here believe we were created,,, and all our family are willing and able to do the Haka, we all think its great at the beginning of the games!!!

I guess though, every one to their own thinking, which makes variety the SPICE of life!!!!!

Cheers again Kai

Many of the young being drawn to the gangs are not low-life, emelle. but come from good families forced into ghetto like suburbs because of ethnicity and/or low wages or benefits.



A kids dream is to be accepted by its peers and the only peers in some of these areas are predators to a covert cause looking for kids to become mules. Once in there is no out and parents lack the resources, the education or the energy to turn the tide on the scum destroying lives.



The threat of punishment is real and despair soon changes to apathy. What tag would you put on the middle class white kids whose fun comes from gate crashing parties and getting drunk and causing mayhem in the city. Or the boyracers who disrupt our lives. Why do these kids behave as they do. Being white I hear it is just kids being kids. Being brown it is low-life in action.

So, election time is coming closer, and we have to make up our minds and remind poiticians on whether we want a higher savings culture developed in NZ as the direction towards more means to face whatever problems are facing us.
Don't blame governments (like Mukldoon's), because we elect them, and if we demand more than what can be delivered on a sustainable basis, we are guilty - possibly through ignorance, at least partly - for not having elected those with the soundest policies and probably fewer goodies right now.
Demand from politicians not so much the delivery of more goodies now, but what do they propose to make the delivery of more goodies sustainable, i.e. towards a culture of higher savings, investment and ownership in New Zealand?